“No, don’t worry. When she goes back to her own compound we’ll come back and remove the bed. Concentrated pavi extract will turn it into dust,” he says. “Then we can just sweep it up.”
“Really?” It seems impossible: the bed looks as immovable as a boulder, like everything else in the compound. It occurs to me how little I know about anything that’s not related to zoology—I’ve seen the clay used to build structures dozens of times: How had I not known about its properties? Rondo would probably have a theory about this. “I didn’t know pavi was so acidic.”
“Oh, it’s not the acidity. Just the way the two react. It’s a fairly recent discovery: before, we would break structures apart like stone.” The engineer thrusts the spade into a loop in his apron and motions for us to clear the doorway. “You know Dr. Yang? It was her discovery, actually. She accidentally dissolved some lab equipment! Would still be a lot easier to build up the compounds if they let us break down the Vagantur, but I suppose some folks still aren’t satisfied.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t satisfied?” I ask as he trundles the case of clay toward the front door. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
He pauses to wipe his hands on his apron.
“Not sure exactly—I don’t remember any world other than this. Seems just fine to me. But the way I hear it, there are some on the Council who grew up bitter about our hosts. Some folks don’t like not being the boss. No boss here but the sun.”
I exchange a look with Alma.
“How would that change though?” I ask as he wheels the case the last few feet to the entrance.
“The Council, girl. The decision is theirs. They decide they want to start making their own rules, and that’s all it takes.”
The door opens and he starts through it, but I fire one more question at his back.
“But wouldn’t that break the landing agreement?”
He looks over his shoulder with a frown and doesn’t stop moving to answer.
“When someone gets it in their head that their way is the right way, no type of agreement will stop that.”
The door slides shut behind him, leaving me standing there staring at its smooth surface, more questions on my tongue.
“You don’t think you’re pushing it a little?” Alma’s voice comes from over my shoulder. Something in her tone makes me turn right away.
“What do you mean?”
She leans against the entrance to my bedroom, her eyebrows furrowed.
“I mean, come on, O,” she says. Her hands, usually like two birds with their gestures, are tucked around her body like she’s in a cocoon. “You’ve told me everything, and I understand. But what is asking all these questions going to accomplish?”
“Maybe nothing,” I say. We stand across the room, looking at each other. “But you don’t think it’s important? You think I shouldn’t ask?”
“I don’t know,” she says. Her hands come loose from around her body and flop at her sides. “It just doesn’t seem like the best way to become a whitecoat. Your parents are already worried about that, right? If you’re focused on this stuff and not your research, it’s only going to be worse if . . .”
“If what? If I ask questions? You’ve always asked questions at the Greenhouse, same as me. Why is this different?”
She purses her lips and looks at me.
“I just—I don’t know. It just is. I want to be a whitecoat, O. The questions I ask further that goal.”
“Maybe being a whitecoat isn’t my ultimate goal, Alma,” I say.
She stares hard at me. She doesn’t squint, but something about her expression narrows.
“What else is there, Octavia?”
We look at each other a moment longer and I can’t find an answer. I’ve told her everything, but some things can’t be explained. Not even to myself. She turns away to disappear back into my room. I take a deep breath before following her.
When I enter, she’s perched up on her new bed, staring at her slate. It’s not illuminated, however. She merely gazes at her blank screen. She’s been like my distant sister since we were children: going to the Greenhouse to take classes with Dr. Yang, chanting songs about the difference between reptiles and amphibians. We were immediate friends, rarely a moment of silence between us. This particular silence seems wide and deep: I’m not sure how to bridge it. As it turns out, she does it first.
“Was that engineer Aiyana’s dad?” she says.
I direct my eyes up at her where she sits. Aiyana is a couple of years older than us and had opted to work in archiving rather than begin a path to the labs. I don’t know her well, but just her name seems to have planted a sparkle in Alma’s eyes.
“No,” I answer, grateful that she’s not mad. “Aiyana’s dad isn’t an engineer.”
“Oh. They have the same smile.”
“What do you know about Aiyana’s smile?” I prod.
She laughs, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh, this and that,” she says.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I can’t just move forward like nothing happened without at least saying this. “I know you want to be a whitecoat. I promise I’ll try not mess things up for you.”
She waves her hands.
“I’m going to be a whitecoat either way, O.”
I stare at her a moment longer: my friend, my confidant. More than that, Alma is smart. I try to hold it back, but I need her input.
“Did you hear what he said, though?” I burst, and she laughs, shaking her head.
“Which part? People being bitter?”
I nod. “Yeah, and about the Vagantur not being dismantled because they’re unsatisfied. About them wanting to change things.”
“Unsatisfied or not, they better get used to it. N’Terra gave up on fixing the Vagantur decades ago. I don’t know where else they think they’d go! This is home.”
“Yeah . . .” I frown. The cloud over my father’s heart has been a vague shadow for so long. Now that I’ve met Dr. Albatur, somehow the cloud has been given a shape. It looms over me and makes me feel cold.
Alma hops down from her perch, going to fetch her mattress from where it’s rolled up in the hall.
“Are your parents coming home later?” she says once she’s unrolled the mattress and is up on her ledge again.
“Yeah probably,” I say, looking down.
She gives me a look, a cross between comfort and reproach.
“It’s okay, O,” she says. “It’s me.”
I sigh. I’ve told her about what happened at the Beak, about my father’s anger, my mother’s secrets, the spotted man, the egg—but I haven’t gotten used to the feeling of needing to hide. Adaptations take time to change, I think: once an animal needs a method of camouflage or a defense mechanism, it’s part of them until it’s phased out over time or replaced.
“They probably won’t come home,” I admit after a pause. “I’ve seen them more in the Zoo in the past few days than I have in weeks. Whatever, I honestly prefer it like this.”
“You’re still mad about the zunile, huh?”
“I mean, yeah!”
She laughs, shaking her head.
“Well, everybody hides something. Like you, with this egg!” She pauses, biting her lip. “Can I see it?”